


When Flies the Dove

by prophet_of_troy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Harry is a girl, Hermione is a boy, My First AO3 Post, Petunia Dursley is a good person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 06:37:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16035014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prophet_of_troy/pseuds/prophet_of_troy
Summary: Dove Potter lives a decent life. Her uncle and cousin are pains, but Aunt Petunia makes up for with stories about her mother. Lily, who makes Dove wonder if her aunt ever looks at her and just sees Dove. Or if she will only ever be Lily's daughter. Then, after being introduced to a whole new world, a whole new world of people who only see her as the Girl Who Lived, she meets someone who simply sees her as Dove.





	When Flies the Dove

Chapter one: Witch in the Family  
  
Petunia read the note again, feeling empty as she always did when her eyes took in the words that she had memorized. Memorized, but every so often she had to read them again to be sure it wasn't just a nightmare that she would wake up from.

_My condolences_.... it said. _Sacrificed herself...._ it said.

She had no doubt. That was the kind of person her sister was, always looking for some cause. Petunia might've known this was how it would end. She could remember the last time she spoke to her in person- at Lily's wedding. She and Vernon had been invited, and as expected she and her sister had quarreled. Petunia had felt so smug at having ruined her day. Of course, that didn't stop Lily from sending a letter when her child was born, with pictures of the family.

Petunia was later ashamed to say she'd destroyed them in her pettiness, but she kept the letter. And it too was memorized. Both were kept in a box hidden in the cabinet above the stove, where she knew the children couldn't reach and Vernon would never venture. It was one of the children that gave her cause to reread them so often.

Dove.

_Dove Petunia Potter_ , Lily's letter said, _for you, my beloved sister._

Dove, who wore Lily's eyes and her expressions to haunt her. Dove, who Petunia had prepared herself to hate from the beginning.

_This is your last chance_.... the first mentioned letter said.

Yes, this was her last chance to make her relationship with her sister right. This was her last chance for forgiveness. And she wasn't going to waste it, even though the days to the girl's eleventh birthday were dwindling. Petunia had seen the signs, had hidden them from Vernon, and she knew she too would get the letter. That was where it went wrong the first time, and she was going to make it right.  
  
*  
  
I woke up panting, sitting straight up in bed and rubbing hard at my eyes to burn the dream away. Green, all I could see was green, and making my way to the bathroom to wash my face didn't help. My eyes were green, green like the light in my dreams that I didn't understand, but didn't need to to know it was bad. And red, red scar like the flash of red hair in the dream.

I jumped, hearing my aunt downstairs clattering about the kitchen with the pots and pans. I relaxed, sighing and drying my face on the hand towel; not the one for appearance, but the one Aunt Petunia says is okay to use. I wondered if I was done being in trouble, it being summer holiday and months after the incident. Aunt Petunia had understood, that it wasn't on purpose, but Uncle Vernon still made a point to glare anytime I was in the room.

Aunt Petunia was always doing that, protecting me from Uncle Vernon and defending me when he holds me responsible for things that I couldn't possibly have done. Like vanishing the glass at the zoo and letting the snake loose.

“Good morning,” Aunt Petunia said when I came downstairs, then wrinkled her nose lightly. “Dove, lily, go comb your hair. It's a mess! And get dressed, you and I need to go out and get some groceries for dinner. I thought we had enough sugar for dessert, but I forgot about the cupcakes we made for the end of year party for Dudley's class.”

She was walking around, distracted as she cooked, or else she'd have seen right through me and fussed about whatever was wrong. As it happened, she barely glanced except to smile. When I didn't move, she did look.

“Are you okay?” She stopped tending the bacon and came to hold my face in her hands. “Oh, you have dark circles around your eyes. Did you sleep okay?”

I nodded, lying. She saw through that too.

“It was that dream again,” she demanded, “Wasn't it? With the green?”

I shrugged, not wanting her to fuss as I heard Uncle Vernon's booming steps down the stairs. “I'm okay, Aunt Petunia. I'll, uh, I'll go get dressed.”

She held my face for another moment, worried, before she nodded and kissed my forehead. “Alright. Don't forget that hair! And wear the blue dress with polka dots.”

I snuck past Uncle Vernon with only a slight sneer of disgust, and went back up to my room. Aunt Petunia said my hair would get neater as I got older, but struggling to keep it in place then didn't make it seem as though it ever would. I was tempted to just stuff it in a braid to keep from dealing with it, but I knew that she would know. I finished, having to wet my hair a bit to make it lay down, and went back downstairs as Dudley left his own room and pushed past me. I pushed him back, running down to get away from him as he tried to catch up.

“Both of you,” Aunt Petunia scolded halfheartedly. “Now sit down and eat. Dove, eat quickly. I have other errands that we need to run.”

Uncle Vernon grumbled, hidden behind his large newspaper. “You should get her school uniform. We've gotten Dudley's.”

I frowned, thinking it was out of character that he was approving the spending of any money on me. Usually he tried to convince Aunt Petunia that Dudley's hand-me-downs were perfectly alright for me. She didn't jump on that, oddly silent at the prospect of a shopping trip than she generally was. She liked clothes shopping, but at the moment she was giving Uncle Vernon a look that I couldn't decipher.

“Perhaps we should wait on that,” she said quietly.

He didn't answer, but grumbled again and flicked his paper dismissively. Next, as Aunt Petunia finished setting food out on the table, came the sound of the mail slot.

“Get the mail, Dudley,” Uncle Vernon said.

“Make Dove get it.”

“Get the mail, Dove.”

“Make Dudley get it.”

“Poke her with your Smeltings stick, Dudley.”

“He will not!” Aunt Petunia chastised.

I stood to get the mail, knowing the battle was still lost, and stuck my tongue out at him as I passed. He glanced to be sure she was back in kitchen, and swung at me with his stick. I dodged it, going to the door. Most of it was for Uncle Vernon, there was a post card from Aunt Marge, a catalog for Aunt Petunia...... and a letter for me.

Slowly, I walked back to the table, frowning at it. There was no doubt it was for me, even having my bedroom on the address, but who would be writing to me? I didn't even have any friends. I sat back down, passing over the rest of the mail, and was about to pop the wax seal (people still used those?) when the heavy envelope was torn from my hands. Dudley waved it high in the air where I couldn't reach it like a flag.

“Dad! Dad! Dove's got a letter!” And he thrust it at Uncle Vernon.

There was silence, if one ignored Dudley's slight panting in excitement at the prospect of me getting in trouble. Though even Uncle Vernon wasn't that unreasonable. He held the unopened letter, staring at it with a terrified expression. Aunt Petunia stood behind him, looking at it too with her own expression of fear. And resignation, like she knew exactly what the letter would say.

“Well,” she said at last. “We knew-”

“Both of you,” Uncle Vernon snapped, interrupting her. “Out. Get out, go play, go to your rooms, but leave the room.”

Dudley and I both protested. And Aunt Petunia for a moment looked like she might let us stay, but finally agreed with Uncle Vernon and herded the both of us out- shutting the door firmly behind us. But we could still hear them through the door.

“We knew this day was coming,” she told him calmly, with only a small tremor in her voice. “She's almost eleven. Lily was eleven.”

“I'll not have one in the house,” Uncle Vernon growled.

Dudley looked through the key hole, I lay down to look under the door. I could see Aunt Petunia's feet, and Uncle Vernon's under the table. Aunt Petunia tapped hers, in a way Dudley and I knew meant trouble.

“You already do,” she told him sternly. “Whether she goes or not, she's still one of them. Her going means that you won't have to worry about her being her for ten months out of the year. By the time she's done she'll be a legal adult.”

Ten months of the year meant a school. Why wouldn't Uncle Vernon like that? Lily, that's what Aunt Petunia calls me. That was my mother's name. So my mother went to this school, but it didn't sound like _she_ had. Why didn't Aunt Petunia go?

“Who wrote that letter?” Dudley asked quietly.

“I don't know,” I answered. “But I want to find out.”

Uncle Vernon broke the silence between the two adults. “This isn't for discussion.”

She answered without hesitation. “You're right. It's not. She's going, and that's final.” Then her voice soften in pleading. “Vernon, this is where I went wrong. Don't you see? I didn't accept Lily when she went, and I should have. I don't want to go through that again.”

Uncle Vernon stood, with some groaning from him and the chair, and he stepped closer. “I don't like this.”

“You don't have to.”

“And, she'll learn to get it under control?”

“If she's anything like Lily, she'll excel.”

“Alright,” he said finally. “But she had better. If she's going to go, then she'd better be ahead of everyone else in those freaky classes. And, I'll have conditions during the holidays.”

Aunt Petunia seemed to be delighted at him. “Of course. I'll-I'll send them a letter back, and ask if someone could come by. They did that with Lily. And tonight all of us will sit down to talk about this.”  
  
*  
  
Neither of them would answer any of our questions the entire day, but after a few attempts Dudley and I stopped asking; knowing that they would tell us that night, and knowing that no good would come of us pressing the matter. And, they were both very nice for the rest of the day. Uncle Vernon even tried to smile at me, asking how I slept when they finally sat back down for breakfast- and that brought to mind the dream again.

“Dream?” He barked, trying to seem interested. “What dream?”

I shrugged, pushing my scrambled eggs around my plate and mumbling. “Just a dream...”

Aunt Petunia patted my arm gently, like she always did, “Eat, darling. Dove has been having nightmares.”

Uncle Vernon obviously didn't know what to say, as his pretend caring obviously didn't extend that far, and he grumbled. He suddenly looked quite interested in his own breakfast, his plate more than four times the size of mine. I remembered suddenly, looking at the blood sausage, and perked up to tell Aunt Petunia.

“It wasn't just green this time,” I told her urgently. “There was red... red hair.”

Aunt Petunia looked startled, her face reddening and her lips pursing.

“R-red hair?” She stammered. Then quietly she added, “Lily had red hair.”

I find it important to say here that I knew a lot about my mum, Lily, and I was always learning more everyday. She liked fruit, Aunt Petunia told her, and she always carried around apples or orange in her bag- that she also always carried around with her. I had my own bag, where I always carried one of each; an apple and orange. My mother liked to read, she liked to paint, she was the best in all of her classes.... and she had red hair.

I'd never seen a picture of her, I didn't know a thing about my dad, and I never asked for either.

“Oh,” I said quietly, thinking that the green dream must have been the accident.

The rest of the day was much the same. Aunt Petunia and I went out for groceries where she let me pick out the ice cream. Then we went home to cook, where she let me help her; having to kneel on a kitchen chair to reach everything with her. At the same time, she smiled more than usual and didn't quite smile right.

I could hardly wait until after dinner, when just as the dishes were cleared she and Uncle Vernon called Dudley and I over into the den. Uncle Vernon was attempting to smile again.

“Sit down,” Aunt Petunia said carefully, a quiver in her voice. “I need to speak to the both of you.

For once, without arguing over who would sit where, both of us collapsed onto the sofa. And Aunt Petunia didn't even say anything about us throwing ourselves down the way she normally might have. She didn't even purse her lips. Instead, she was glancing nervously at Uncle Vernon. It seemed the talking would left to her.

“I don't know everything,” she prefaced anxiously. “Lily and I hadn't talked for some time by the end of it, but I'll start at the beginning.”

“Is this about that letter?” Dudley whined. “Why can't we just read it?”

Aunt Petunia was very patient, as though she was afraid of the story she had to tell, looking at me. “Lily and I met a boy a long time ago in the park near our house. I know you do things, Dove, things that you don't mean to do. Things that you don't know how-”

She stopped again. Like she didn't know where to begin.

“Lily could do things too,” she started again quietly. Then she chuckled to herself. “Once, she had a nightmare and woke up inside a wall. It happens mostly when you're stressed, you see. I-I used to hate her so much for it.

“We met a boy in the park once, and he could do the same things. His mother could too. She'd gone to a school where they taught it, and the boy told us that he and Lily would go too.”

“Why couldn't you go?” I asked, not understanding a bit. Except, Mum could do it too.

Aunt Petunia smiled watery. “Because I'm just a normal person. I wasn't like them. I'm not like you.”

She hesitated before saying emphatically and passionately, “You have magic, Dove, lily, just like she and that boy did. Magic, truly. That letter today was from a school of magic, and it means it's time for you to know about the world your mum lived in.”

I was about to interrupt, tell her that surely she was wrong. But Aunt Petunia was never wrong. I didn't have to interrupt her anyway. A knock did that. Everyone jumped at it, looking towards the door before Aunt Petunia looked at Uncle Vernon- who decided it was his responsibility to open it.

There was mostly silence, Dudley and I listening to Uncle Vernon's wheezing down the hall and the sound of skin as Aunt Petunia wrung her hands.

“You must be Mr. Dursley,” an unfamiliar voice said. “I got the missive sent by your wife, though we had assumed she might not know....”

“Please, come in,” we heard him say stiffly.

Into the living room, followed by Uncle Vernon, was a tall woman with dark hair- darker even than mine- and emerald green robes. Her eyes found me immediately and she looked startled, the eyes finding the jagged scar on my forehead. They were only there for a moment before she was looking at Aunt Petunia.

“Mrs. Dursley,” she bowed her head respectfully.

Aunt Petunia bowed her own, obviously surprising the woman. “I remember you. You were there when Lily got her letter. You work at the- the school.”

I regarded the woman with new interest. She nodded at the comment. “I do, and I was. I am the Deputy Headmistress as well as the Transfiguration teacher, and Head of Gryffindor House.”

“I'm only just now telling her about- that stuff.”

The woman pursed her lips hard enough to rival Aunt Petunia at her most annoyed state, turning to look at me again. “Then I should introduce myself. I am Professor Minerva McGonagall, and I come from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Magic.

“Prove it,” Dudley said, more curious than unpleasant.

At the prospect, Uncle Vernon's face got red and Aunt Petunia's paled, but neither objected when Professor Minerva McGonagall pulled an odd looking stick out of her sleeve and pointed it at the tea set on the table before seeming to have thought differently and she put it back. The other two adults took a deep breath of relief before suddenly- and without warning- the woman turned into a large tabby cat!

Aunt Petunia let out a startled sound, and Uncle Vernon a choking sound, but my eyes were too wide for my mouth to have done anything. Then, just as though nothing had happened, she was a person again.

“You were a cat!” I said finally.

She almost looked like she was smiling. “How astute of you.”

I grinned, jumping off of the couch in excitement. “You were a cat! Can I do that? Could mum?”

“Calm down,” Aunt Petunia said mildly. “One thing at a time, Dove, lily.”

I nodded. “Yes, of course. I'm sorry, professor.”

Professor McGonagall was watching us carefully, curiously, and at my apology smiled truly. “Quite alright, my dear. I'm an animagus, that's what it's called when a witch or wizard can transfigure themselves into an animal at ease. As far as I know neither of your parents could do it, but one day maybe you can. When you're older, I'll teach you.”

“A-a witch?” Dudley asked, eyes wide.

“Yes, that's what your cousin is,” Professor McGonagall said patiently. “That's what I am.”

Aunt Petunia was still wringing her hands. “Dove, there's still something you should know. Your parents, they didn't die in a car accident.”

Professor McGonagall jerked to her. “C-car accident? You-you told her they- of course they didn't die in a car accident. Why, telling her that is as close to the truth as calling-”

She stopped herself, glancing to us and back to the adults to say with great difficulty, “Yes, well, I'm sure you did what you thought was best. No matter. I, of course, can assist if you wish.”

“Well, I don't really know what to say,” I heard Aunt Petunia say. “We'd stopped talking by that point. I know there was someone-”

She stopped, as though her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and she couldn't speak anymore. Professor McGonagall nodded, motioning for everyone to sit again. “There was a man, a long time ago- a wizard- who went dark. He wanted power, and in war he got it. He hurt many people, and one day he came to Godric's Hollow......”  
  
*  
  
Petunia Dursley waited until she heard her husband's breathing even out, and then she waited even longer. She was sure everyone was asleep, even Dove who, like her mother, liked to stay up late with her thoughts and daydreams. It was late, later than Petunia was used to staying up, but she couldn't sleep. She'd tried not to think about how her sister died. She'd tried not to imagine, but after tonight it was no longer something she could avoid and her mind was flooded with images- each one more horrifying than the last. There was no way she could possibly get to sleep now.

Now that she was thinking about Dove leaving her, the way Lily did. And Petunia wouldn't be there to see her, to look after her, to make sure she was safe.

Petunia sat up gently, looking over at her husband as she stood to make sure he didn't wake. He grumbled slightly, turning over, but that was it. Carefully, she snuck down the stairs- flinching at the creak of the third stair up. She found what she was looking for in the desk, pulling out paper and a nub of a pencil.

She didn't know quite what to say, what to scrawl after fifteen years. But it had to be done, and when it was, she went outside. It was late enough to be early morning, dew on the grass and the smell of dawn in the air. Now, she looked for an owl.

This was ridiculous, she thought. What did she think, that she would just find an owl waiting there in case she had use for one? That was exactly what she thought. It had worked the day before. Had it really only been a day?

Then she heard one, a few feet away, and she stepped lightly towards it as though she thought it would attack her or fly off without her letter. But it stood still, looking at her like she looked ridiculous. She supposed, to an owl who was used to people treating it normally, she did.

“Can you,” she cleared her throat tentatively, holding her letter out, “could you find- I don't know where he is. He might be in Cokeworth still, but could you take this- please- to Severus Snape?”

The owl perked up at once, as though knowing _exactly_ who she was talking about. It took the letter in its mouth and flew off with its great wings. Petunia watched it until it was out of sight, and then went back inside to start breakfast.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope everyone likes the first chapter. I don't know when the second will be up. I've started it, but I also have a couple on FFN I have to update first. Let me know what you think in the towel section below.
> 
> Cassie.


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